VIBRATING AIR: Remove the Mic for Great, Real Sounds

 

VIBRATING AIR: Remove the Mic for Great, Real Sounds

The holiday season is a time when acoustic music makes a valiant revival. It’s the one time during the year when screaming guitars and pounding drums take a rest.

Recently I was at a concert of the Lange Vocal Ensemble at Lansing’s St. Paul’s Church.  Along with this excellent vocal group were handbells, pipe organ, brass quartet, piano and oboe/English horn.  All acoustical instruments and there wasn’t a microphone in sight.

All the sounds of that concert were natural and unadulterated. The voices and the organ especially, blended smoothly together like the ingredients of your favorite cake.  One could almost imagine the sound waves and the air all mixing together to produce a beautiful, melded cloud of music.

Acoustic music holds a special place for me. I sometimes feel assaulted by the force of amplified sounds. Acoustic music, on the other hand, surrounds and envelops me.

Obviously unamplified music works best in small venues. The small space in a church auditorium was optimum for the instruments I heard that day. 

But larger spaces can also work if the ensembles are of appropriate size. Hearing a full symphony orchestra (usually 60-100 musicians) in all its splendor, unamplified, is a special joy.

It’s both a visual and audio experience. During the concert, your eyes scan the stage left to right and see the instruments you are hearing.  At first, you see the instruments that produce the high sounds of the ensemble; violins, glockenspiel, marimba, triangle, cymbals. These high-pitched notes are usually not captured well through electronic systems.

As your eyes continue to move to the right, you see the woodwinds, brass, horns and then on to the lower instruments – cellos, timpani, trombones, tuba and string basses.  Again, the full depth and resonance of those fundamental tones are not reproduced completely over speakers.

And as your eyes take in all of the instruments, the sounds you are hearing are being heard from where the instruments are actually situated on the stage – not from a central set of speakers where sounds are all shmushed together and thrown at you in one sonic clump.

Several years ago, I heard “Rigoletto” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  The auditorium there is huge – 3974 seats.  The orchestra in the pit (situated mostly under the stage) has probably 60 musicians and of course the singers – soloists and chorus – are on the stage.  Nothing is amplified.

When I heard the opera, almost miraculously the sound of the vocalists and instrumentalists were perfectly balanced and audible throughout the large auditorium. I was surprised to see many microphones surrounding the orchestra and the stage, but the musicians told me that those were for Sirius Radio broadcasts and assured me that nothing was amplified at The Met.

Most classical music is unamplified – chamber music, orchestras, soloists, and opera. If there is a microphone on stage, it is usually for comments from the musicians. Also, many jazz and folk groups perform without amplification, depending on the size of the house.

Back in the 50s and 60s Broadway musicals were not miked either.
Those were the days when clarion voices like Ethel Merman and others, filled those small Broadway houses (800-1200 seats).  Also, the pit orchestras were small and included many strings.

Amplification was used when Rex Harrison could not be heard speaking/singing his role in My Fair Lady (1956).  They outfitted the non-singer with a wireless microphone – the first time it was used on a Broadway stage.

Today, Broadway shows use the most hi-tech sound systems available, with every person on stage using a mic. The entire production is mixed so each show sounds like a commercially produced CD.

The advent of computerized sound has given musicals many more options than they once had.  For the show Cats, the band is not seen at all.  The musicians are sitting backstage, connected to the audience and actors through cameras and screens. Their space is sometimes called “the litter box” by the cast and crew.

At the end of his concerts, crooner Tony Bennett used to like to sing a song a capella with no microphone, reminding audiences that it can still be done. It was always impressive, as his voice successfully reached all the way to the back rows of the hall on its own.

Yes, electronic sound has improved dramatically over the years, but for my money I always prefer the real sounds of instruments and voices.  The airwaves vibrating from reeds, strings, vocal chords, and lips provide the warmest and most expressive music to my ears.

And during the holiday season, with concerts featuring choirs, orchestras, vocalists, and bands that are often au naturel is a pleasure that I always treasure.